"True, God made everything beautiful in itself and it its time - but He's left us in the dark, so we can never know what God is up to, whether He's coming or going. I've decided that there's nothing better to do than go ahead and have a good time and get the most we can out of life. That's it - eat, drink, and make the most of your job. It's God's gift."
~ quoted from the book of Ecclesiastes ~

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Last month....this is how busy I was until I can only able to update my blog now. Anyway, last month the school celebrate their International Day by having a big shindig at the school. The preparation has been going over a month. Since I am not too involve with the preparation, I can't say much about it here. My bad....

All I know is that each countries are encourage to perform something that night and off course the chidren are encourage to wear their national clothes.

This year, R and me decide to let KK wear Taiwanese or Chinese clothes. Originally I thought I could just go to Pasar Atum ( in Chinatown ) Wholeseller center just to purchase the already made one but it turned out that they don't carry his size. Mostly only for 3 years old or younger. They will start selling KK's size again when it's near Chinese New Year. So for now, my only option is to buy the fabric and ask a seamstress to sew it for him. Custom made it.

Since I know that in KK's school there are quite a few Taiwanese students I thought my son won't be the only one who were going to wear this costume but it turn out to be he was the only boy who wears Chinese/Taiwanese old costume because most boys from Taiwan just wears T-shirts with the same logo because that night they need to perform. So KK became like their mascot, the youngest Taiwanese and he was the only boy with red bright color costume! On the parade, 2 pretty girls in short traditional dress hold his hands. Lucky boy ...

To start the event, they have International food festival at the cantine. The parents cooked many of their country dishes and let everybody have a taste for free. For me, I enjoy Korean food the most. They have a really good Kim Chee that night. My parents and Richard also thought that was one of the best Kim Chee that we have ever taste. I wish I could get my hand on the recipe ... I tried to speak with some of the Korean moms but it seems they couldn't understand me .... I will try again next time ...

Here are some of the photos that I took that night ...

Pic: International Food Festival

Pic: Netherland's Food

Pic: My son's classmate, her father is from Spain but her mom is Taiwanese, so she speak Chinese fluently.

Pic: Kai Kai in the middle of beautiful high school girls from Taiwan

Pic: The whole school's students were getting ready to sing together

Pic: ( L ) The only student from East Timor, the new country. (R) Zimbwabwe

Pic: (L) Korean ; (R) Indian

Pic: (L) Indian ; (R) Koreans

Pic: (L) Korean ; (R) Malaysia

Pic: (L) Australian students dress up and dance to honor Steve Erwin, the crocodile hunter. (R) Switzerland's students use this beautiful mural to describe the beauty of their country.

Pic: (L) Zimbabwe students bowed down after their performance ; (R) Netherlands performance

Pic: My son and his close friend from Netherland, the tulip boy that you saw on earlier photo

And now here are the video clips from that night ...

Vid: Indian dance, see that KK and his classmate are all dancing too in the dark.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

I am still amaze to realize that now my daughter is already 10 months old! She has grown a lot, she is somewhere around 10kg now, with some baby fat at all the right spots! I just couldn't get enough to kiss her round tummy and her round thighs!

She is so lovely!

She likes everybody and everybody loves her back. But she still reserved her exuberant laughter just for dear old me. For me, I can make her laugh at any time I want. She also loves her daddy very much, every time she saw Richard, she will throw her body to his direction and she will squeel happily calling him "PAPA!!!" So cute...

La La started to call me "mama" since she was 6 months old, and she called Richard "papa" when she was 8 months old. Then since she was 9 she started trying to talk to people in her baby language off course. She even try to sing, when she heard her favorite songs such as "Hickory Dickory Dock", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", and few more, she start to sing together with the songs in her own language and all the while she will sway her body to the music. So...so...so...cute!

She loves music very much. She even recognize when I tapped my hand to my thighs or to the sofa to a certain beat, she will start to dance, even though I did not sing and there is no background music. It just a beat. I don't know how she can know the different between random tapping and beat tapping. If I just tapped or clapped randomly without any beat, then she did not dance.

Because she start to get interested more and more to her surrounding. I start teaching her the name of things. I found that she loves to be taught and she can concentrate better and for a longer time than my son. Maybe it's true that girl mature faster? When I start teaching her, she will stop playing and stare at every thing I touch or point at. She also stared at my mouth and try to immitate my mouth when I say the name of the thing that I point or touch. So when I say "fan" , she said " pan". Pretty close I guess...

Within 3 days, when I ask her " Where is ...... ? ", she will touch or look or point at that thing. The example of the objects that she now knows: fan, sofa, pillow, body pillow, zipper, wind chime, christmas tree, table, bed, chair, blanket, teddy bear, book, clock, light, telephone, TV, and few more ...

I wish I did this exercise earlier with KK. I did it but he was 1.5 years old then, not 10 months old because he start talking a bit late so I did not think to teach him words yet.

About sleeping, she still sleep from 7 PM till 5 AM nonstop. Then she will take a nap around 9 and wake up in about an hour, but she can nap for 3 hours too sometimes. She take another nap around 2 till 3 or 4. So she is a pretty good sleeper too.

About eating. Again, it's my fault, I did not dare to cook baby food before when KK was just a baby. I keep buying Gerber baby food. But now I enjoy very much cooking La La's food. Maybe someday I will write an entree on baby food recipes that I have created or tried from a book.I found that I can make the same food that both kids can enjoy. I gave KK the original texture, and I gave LL the puree one.

I am also glad that LL is such a loving baby. She loves to hug her grandparents and kiss them too. I can ask her to give her teddy bear a kiss. Many times when we play together, she will hug and kiss me...soo...sooo...sweet!

Pic: Bath time is always fun for her

Pic: Now she can start going around the house with this baby walker

Pic: Yep, this is how she likes to react when she saw me taking her picture

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Being a student in SIS in a way means, you will forever be tan, because the school has an Olympic size swimming pool that is open not only for the students but also for us, parents. The school also believe that there should be a balance between mental exercise and physical exercise. So every week, my son has 1 gym time and 1 swimming time. But then my husband also enroll him for the twice a week intensive swimming club in the school. So you can imagine how tan KK's skin right now. Putting a sunblock only prevent him from getting a sunburn but do not prevent him from getting a good tan from all those outdoor activities.

The good thing is, now KK can join us in the deep water when we went to our health club. Now that we move to Indonesia, we want to be healthier by joining a health club from a nearby hotel. It's only 5 minutes from where we live by car. Or maybe less.

Since we had a long holiday ( 10 days! ) because Indonesian are celebrating their "Hari Raya", the biggest Moslem holiday here equivalent with Chinese New Year or Christmas. We have tons of time to play with KK ( finally! ). So we took him to our health club for a swim. This is the second time only for me and KKcan swim together, but it's not the same with Richard, he took KK there to have a quality time together as father and son more often than me. The reason is because by afternoon when Richard wants to unwind from working in our company, it's already time for me to prepare dinner for our family. Unless I know for sure that there will be food for my family to eat ( Richard is still not accustomed to Indonesian food ), then I can go to swim with them.

So I was quite surprise to see that after many swimming classes in the school plus swimming time with Richard, now KK can independently swim on his own in the deep water without being scared.

He shows me that he can jump into the water with many styles ... the proof is in this video clip :

I am glad that we find him the right school that can keep up with his energy. He always fell asleep on the way home from school or on the way to his Chinese class. But once he arrives at home, he will continue his execise by riding his bike all over the house. That's why his body is so strong. So far, he is the healthiest in this house. He never even catch a cold.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Now that we are more settle down in Surabaya. We started to join an International Church based on my bestfriend's invitation ( thanks Arief, I know you read my blog sometime! ). This church is located inside Supermall, the biggest mall in Surabaya and a few weeks ago I saw someone sell inflated children swimming pools in many different shapes but at that time I did not think to buy it yet. Now that the weather here is just getting hotter every day, that children swimming pools just getting more attractive to me! So finally I decided to buy it for my children ...

Too bad that I was not the only person in Surabaya who suddenly has this great idea. By the time we are ready to buy it, most of them already sold out! There are only 2 choices left. The one I bought cost about Rp.200,000 or US $ 20.

And it worth every cent of it ...

I love to see both KK and LL's expression when they play in this swimming pool. For LL safety, I only filled it with water for less than half of it's depth because I don't want LL to be scared at all of her first swimming experience. So even though she fell face down, she won't drown in it. But off course it's almost impossible for her to drown when so many people were there to watch her play!

At one time KK accidently splash water to her face, good thing is, she did not cry and he kiss her later to show her that it was an accident and he loves her.

So here is the photos and the video clips of them playing in that pool together.

Monday, October 30, 2006

As you can see, I have been writing and writing about my daughter and it seems that I have neglected to write about my son a little bit. My bad...

So here is an update on how he is doing lately.

Everyday his time pretty much revolved around his school and his after school activities. So really, we really don't have enough time alone with him anymore. And when he is home, he rather go bicycling around the house than sit talk to me.

Since we live at the same area with the company. Our home is never quiet. The opposite from our old home in Canada. For my son, this new home is way better suit his taste because he really hate to be lonely. He likes to talk to people a lot.

So at home, he rides his bike all over our property and he makes many stop to chat with our employees. Within 1.5 month, he gains a lot of insight that amaze us about how our company works, how to improve it, how to deal with lazy employees, and such.

Amazingly, his advises are usually correct also!

For example: He said a lot of our employee at the back of the property are sleeping around and they don't really follow the company rule. So he suggest that my father should call them one by one and tell them to behave themselves. Then he suggest that we should test our employees to see how good is their performance and we really have to test our future employees so we won't have this many lazy employees he said. Hahaha! He also said that our employees need to learn to clean up the mess that created when they work. Beside telling us this, he proof it to the employees on his own idea by dusting all of our products in the warehouse. To show it to our employees that cleanliness is next to Godliness. Good for him because I do the same too. While my dear cousin Eliza said that my life in Surabaya will be so easy, I don't have to clean up anything anymore she said, and I will go regularly to beauty salon for this and that. Well... here it is Liza, one of this day, I will take a picture of my hands and send it to you. These are the hands of a worker, full of blisters and scratches because I still clean up my own mess. True that I don't have to do my own laundry anymore. But I still wash my cooking tools after I finish cooking ( I have to cook for bigger crowd here! Without the help of my trusty dishwasher machine! ). Then I clean up my own kitchen. I even scrub my own bathroom , and off course I clean up my room and children's room too.

So yeah... maybe Kai Kai get that from me...the different is, after I clean up all of our mess ( not just mine ), I did not go to my husband or my father and asked for my wages! Hahaha. That's what Kai Kai did to me. He asked me for his wages and yes, I paid him for his honest work. He did very well because he really put time and a lot of effort to dust a lot of our products. Not just pretending to dust them only.

At night time, he never forgets to pray for his favorite employees who usually play with him.

Beside this story, KK also has lost some of his baby tooth and the last one, he lost it in the car on the way home from school. In the car, he likes to munch on some popcorns that he bought from the school. Then suddenly he said to the driver ( Djo ), " Djo...I lost my tooth!!! " He insist for Djo to stop on the side of the street and search for his tooth but both of them couldn't find it. The reason is because he knows Richard wants to collect all his baby teeth.

Later I have a conversation with him regarding the tooth fairy and I taped the conversation so that when he grew up, he can listen to his own words.

I think I am going to tape my conversation with him more often because they really are so cute. A child's confession.

Video: Talking about his missing tooth.

Video: Talking about tooth fairy

Video: Talking about marrying his bestfriend James so he can be our family.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

The last time I posted an entry for her monthly birthday was for her 5 months birthday and now she is already 9 months old. Amazing at how many things has change since then.

During these few months she acquired many new skills and starting to show her personality more and more.

One thing for sure though... I found her more fascinating everyday!

It is really interesting to see the differences between boy and girl with Kai Kai and La La.

They are so different in many things.

She keeps coming up with new cute behavior that she will outgrow in about a week or two but then she will have another cute behavior to replace the old one. For example, last month, when she is happy with us, to get our attention, or trying to please us, she will bat her eyelashes !!! Goodness gracious, this girl is a very girly girl!!!

Later on she replace this with "kiss-kiss", she will pucker up her lips just like we do when we want to kiss her and start making that kissing smacking sounds at us! Even now she still do this.

She also knows how to dance to the music by rocking herself to the beat. Sometimes this is also being accompanied by waving her hands on the air. She has 2 musical toys that she loves, both from LeapFrog. One is the Leapfrog frog with play time and sleep time music sets, and the other one is the new musical A-B-C Spider. She knows how to operate these 2 toys since 2 months ago, since she was 6 months old. Amazing! One day, while she was rocking/dancing with her musical toys, I tried to follow the songs with Kai Kai's toy keyboard. Many years ago I learn how to play piano but it's been 6 years since I touch a piano key! So I am very rusty and as a result I kept making mistake trying to imitate La La toy's song and she get cranky because I ruined her fun. She said something that sounds like this with a cranky sounds " Ya..ya...nana....na! ". At first I thought she just wants to talk to me so I stop playing the keyboard and replied to her " Yes sweetie ". Then she go back to rocking with the music. But soon, she yell at me again when I disturb her from enjoying her music with my falsetto performance on that tiny keyboard! This happen 3 times before I finally get it that she doesn't like me to interrupt her with my talentless piano recital! So I stopped first. Until she is busy with her other toys and I practice first on that tiny keyboard. So when she return to play again with her musical toys, this time I can follow that same songs with my tiny keyboard almost perfectly. This time, La La just turn her head and smile at me. I guess she thinks my piano performance is okay now ...

Another thing that she likes to play is " Peek-a-boo" game, how she does this is by hiding her own face on a pillow until I said " Boo! " then she look at me and give me a big grin!

Since 3 months ago ( she is only 6 months old ) , she already knows how to call me "Mama". And since 1 month ago at least, she calls Richard "Papa!". Now, she can say also " A-ma " to her Taiwanese grandma, "Mak" to my mom, and "Apa?" when we asked her questions. I think my son start to speak when he is around 18 months. Beside that, she also likes to have a long "conversation" with us as if she has something really important to say to us. Girl sure is more chatty huh?

On one scary note, 2 weeks ago she fell off from her crib! On the same day, she also had an allergic reaction. There are many red patches showed up all over her body and it takes 2 days with 3 dosages of medication administered by me that she finally stop having allergic reaction. She also had her first cold but luckily very minor, she did not have any fever. Just runny nose and a bit of cough. Since she is very healthy, she recover very soon without any medication.

Since 7 months old, she also start to eat solid. With my son, I wasn't confident enough to make baby foods on my own but now I enjoy making baby food for La La. And she shows her appreciation for my cooking by eating heartily everyday! We all loves watching her eat so well. This girl has sweet tooth also, she likes sweet vegetables such as carrots, sweet peas, red bell pepper, and pumpkins ( her favorite ). She loves sweet fruits off course. So when I cook her food, I always put one type of sweet fruit or veggies in it. She likes her meat too, with the exception of fish. She hates the fishy smell. She eats 3 meals a day, 4 bottles of milk a day and plus she also snacking on Gerber Fruit Puffs that looks like this picture.

I don't know why but both my children loves the taste of Gerber's food and even my bestfriend "W" children also loves this brand the most too! Luckily SOGO carries almost all of Gerber's products. Funny thing is, just yesterday I found that it's cheaper to buy Gerber Organic Products than the regular one. Maybe not many people knows that the organic bottles are also made by Gerber. Not that Indonesian do not know that organic stuff is better and healthier than the regular stuff. I wrote on my food blog that now on every grocery stores in Surabaya, they carries a lot of local organic products. Mostly fresh produce.

La La also start to walk around the house using the baby walker. Also watched by us off course for her safety.

She is also getting prettier everyday with her beautifully even white teeth on her gum, her smile is a killer! Add her habit to bat her eyelashes to that... man....nobody in this house can say "No" to her demands.

She still loves her bath time as well. The different is, since her hair is getting longer now, we likes to comb her hair. How we do this is by making her sit facing the mirror and we gently comb her hair. During this time, she will sit still and smile at her reflection on the mirror! She likes looking pretty! Except when I put on a hat on her head, she will grab it and threw it accross the room!

She likes to jump a lot too while I hold her up. She loves it when we swing her to the air. She is not as easily to be scared as before like when we were in Disney and we rode the train from the parking lot to the main entrance that alone is enough to make her almost cry. We are all addicted to hear her giggling happily. I think now everybody here develop stronger upper arm muscles from swinging her on the air!

So here are her pictures that I recently took ... see how she is growing from a newborn baby to a beautiful baby girl who knows that she is loved by us all.

Pic: Me and my daddy

Pic: LL loves soft cushie pillows and blankies. When she found one, this is what she is going to do with it. She will rub and rub and rub her face on the pillow and smile very big. If I join her fun by rubbing my face on the pillow next to her, she will laugh happily.

Pic: Even though she is very easy going and she doesn't mind if anybody hold her, she reserved her laughter only for me ...

Pic: Sweet and Classic Picture

Pic: A Silly Picture

Pic: Cute picture

Goodbye for now people...see you next month on my 10th month birthday ...

About Me

I am a wife and a mom first. I was married in 1998, then had a son in 2000 and a daughter in 2006.
Even though I am an Indonesian but my husband is a Taiwanese and we do have some friends who can only read in English so that is why I write my blog in English. And since English is not my first language, so my grammar is pretty messed up. I hope that won't lessen the fun of reading my blog .
I have several things that I am passionate about. First, I am very passionate about my family. I also love travelling, photography, books, and cooking. As you can see, I posted a lot of food photos in here. I also posted a lot of my family pictures in gardens or parks. I wish I can travel in more places so I can take you for a pictorial food and gardens tour from many countries. That is my dream !